U.S. firearms sales May 2021—Year-over-year decrease from 1.7 million to 1.4 million firearms

From Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting

Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting (SAAF) estimates May 2021 U.S. firearms unit sales at a little over 1.4 million units, a year-over-year decrease of about 300,000 firearms, a 16.8% drop relative to May 2020.

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SAAF’s firearms unit sales estimates are based on raw data taken from the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), adjusted for checks unlikely to be related to end-user firearms sales. For example, although the FBI’s raw numbers (for May 2021, some 3,206,589 checks) increased year-over-year by about 100,000 checks, this is largely due to background checks unrelated to end-user sales. As a case in point, in May the state of Illinois conducted close to 1,000,000 total checks whereas end-user unit sales at likely amounted to about 41,000. SAAF makes certain adjustments to the FBI’s raw data based on retailer reports and other information; nonetheless, the estimates likely understate the true number of sales.

SAAF Chief Economist Jurgen Brauer comments that “the May 2021 number of about 1.4 million firearms is the second monthly decline recorded in the first five months of 2021. Nonetheless, the overall firearms sales pace thus far this year clocks in at nearly 9.2 million units as compared to 8.7 million units for January to May 2020.”

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